Discover how the latest in biotechnology and psychological research can help manage and maintain your level of calm.
Empower yourself with tools and techniques proven to help keep you calm.
Utilize Active Mode to record your day to day levels of calm.
Avail of the personal data feature to discover if you have any specific triggers.
Not feeling so calm? That’s fine, you may personalise Koala to automatically notify friends by text.
Discover the power of knowledge with Koala.
OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT
This IT project was undertaken by our team, the ALM Group which consists of three 3rd year undergraduate Applied Psychology students, attending Dun Laoghaire College of Art Design and Technology.
This is a user-centered IT research project in which our team’s task was to create a software prototype, a creative original solution to a contemporary situation within our environment. Several themes were presented as options at the beginning of the year including virtual reality, e-health, mindfulness, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and education.
After discussion, our team became increasingly interested in addressing the high rates of anxiety in our society, and we were particularly interested in helping individuals currently on waiting lists for mental health services.
Our team conducted research to establish what products were in existence, how they worked, which were effective, and which were underpinned by credible psychological research.
After a visit to the Science Gallery in Trinity College Dublin, we became quite interested in the possibilities surrounding biotechnology as a form of therapeutic intervention. We also discovered that while there is no shortage of tools for specific interventions such as meditation apps, or self reporting anxiety tracking apps. There was a complete dearth of interventions that biometrically track levels of calm or stress through physiological data using a wearable device.
Our team created a pioneering approach with a system that contains empirically supported therapeutic interventions which work concurrently with a biometric system that accurately tracks levels of calm or anxiety.
It enables the user to accurately track and monitor their progress over time. This allows the user to measure the most effective calming interventions for them. Additional built-in features such as journalling can be used to identify anxiety triggers.
The caring Koala app was created by our team, as a psychology based IT solution to help restore a level of calm to those who may need it most.
From the ALM group.
INTRODUCTION
Research indicates a high prevalence rate for anxiety, reports indicating anxiety as one of the most common mental health problems in the UK. Figures reveal at least 1 in 6 people will suffer from anxiety at some point in their life. There is a dearth of available statistics in Ireland regarding official figures. However research published by ‘My world survey’ (2019) conducted by the UCD psychology department Ireland, published by jigsaw.ie (2019), reported a significant rise in the numbers of young people (12-25) suffering with anxiety. This research highlighted a considerable increase of 26% in the last 7 years.
According to the central statistics office, just over a 3rd of Ireland’s population is under 25 years of age. This indicates that a large percentage of Ireland’s population suffer from, and require mental health services for anxiety related issues.
Concerns are mounting that Ireland lacks the facility, services and manpower to meet with the ever-growing demand for mental health services.
Waiting times for services have reached a staggering peak, similar to the medical health system. It is not uncommon for individuals to be waiting for up to a year to avail of vital mental health services.
Currently In Ireland just under three and a half thousand adults are waiting on counselling services, and six thousand, three hundred children are waiting for an initial primary care appointment for a psychologist.
According to the PSI, less than 9 percent of targets levels for assessments were being achieved (PSI, 2019).
As psychology students, our teams intention is to help create solutions to reduce levels of anxiety and restore calm. To create technological interventions and innovations. With technological advances and the vast accessibility of smartphone devices, many therapeutic self-help intervention services have successfully demonstrated the capacity to help bridge the gap between resourced face to face therapeutic methods and internet guided interventions.
Organisation such as Aware Ireland have recently launched a ‘life skills‘ online program. The Rape Crisis Center (RCC), very recently offer the ‘moving forward’ program. This was initially introduced and offered to those on the RCC therapy waiting list highlighting how technology is being utilised as a benificial intervention.
Anxiety and stress reducing applications, such as headspace become prominently popular in recent years facilitating the emergence of similar applications.
According to a meta-analysis of mobile based self-help interventions,overall, (specifically guided rather than unguided) self-help interventions supported the efficacy of internet mobile based interventions for helping cope with anxiety as a potential augmented service supply (Domhardt, Geßlein, von Rezori & Baumeister, 2018).
Our research demonstrated however that many anxiety and stress reducing apps that promise psychologically researched interventions appear more to be a marketed application with little to no mental health expertise used or research utilized (Sucala et al., 2017). This clearly demonstrated the need for a scientifically backed, research based app.
Our team were encouraged however by the existing evidence the supports the effectiveness of the therapeutic benefits of an app in reducing a user’s anxiety levels (Firth et al., 2017). Existing research highlights considerable potential. Our team wanted to take this one step further by integrating a biometric tracking system into our design.
Aims of the project:
The aim of our project is to create an application that may be used by everyone to help monitor, restore and maintain levels of calm. A particular consideration was directed towards individuals experiencing high levels of anxiety while waiting for mental health services. Waiting periods for such services in Ireland are extensive, health care providers reporting waiting times of up to almost a year for some health care providers. Our team focus was an intervention to help bridge the gap between long waiting times, with a self-care, self-help, guided, educational and strategies-based intervention application, that uses biometric technology to track and monitor the users physiological symptoms all with a view of promoting calm.
The ALM group bring you the science of calm.
ANDREW 
MICHAEL 
LOUISE
Our Team
Andrew Moore, Louise Connolly and Michael Fortune are undergraduate 3rd year Applied Psychology mature students, at Dun Laoghaire College of Art Design and Technology IADT. Andrew Moore and Louise Connolly are specializing in the therapeutic application of our degree, also referred to as the practice path. Michael Fortune is specializing in the technological aspects of our Psychological Society of Ireland accredited degree. Together, combining different specialized skill sets provided by our studies, in addition to bringing a wide range of life experience, we have formed the ALM Group.
background research
Our background research provides our users with empirically based research. Our focus towards research and knowledge was based upon the characteristics of the scientific approach to knowledge. Our team primarily utilising peer reviewed journals from the fields of Psychology, Sociology, Technology and Physiology to facilitate unbiased and objective reporting of knowledge. Our team maintained a critical attitude while researching interventions that best suit your specific and individualistic needs.
Our interventions consist of many educational and therapeutic self-help methods such as focused based meditation, exercise, breathing techniques, the importance of sleep and more. These methods provide you with evidence-based interventions and education at your fingertips.
Design Process
Our design was inspired in part by the caring nature of the Koala. Initially multiple paper prototypes were created to establish the look and feel we were searching for. A digital prototype was created from this point which was developed, both in terms of style and function through several UX testing sessions to make sure the most important person – you 🙂 are able to effectively navigate and understand the multitude of features the Koala has to offer. For a full breakdown of the design process including some original version of the Koala you may view our journey in the design section.
ETHICS
The ALM team are members of the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI), and as such are duty bound to. and aware of the full code of ethics for the society. Additionally, in order to commence research for this project our team received ethical approval from the department of technology and psychology in Dun Laoghaire College of Art Design and Technology. For full details of ethical considerations in the project please visit the ethics section
REFERENCES
Our reference list provides evidence-based support using peer reviewed scholarly articles, journals and literature, in relation to the area of stress and anxiety based mental health definitions and therapeutic interventions. Every effort has been made to provide acknowledgment to the contribution of previous research used by the AML group to further our own research into specific user needs in relation to the Koala application.
thekoalaapp.wordpress.com 